PORTSMOUTH – One of the state’s oldest settlements, a crown jewel of historic Portsmouth, will host New England BIPOC Fest, a fusion of the culture and connectedness of the region’s Black and Indigenous peoples.
The fourth annual New England BIPOC Fest will take place Sunday at the Strawbery Banke Museum after more than doubling in size from last year’s event at Vida Cantina, a restaurant owned and operated by the event’s co-founder, chef David Vargas. Over 75 vendors from five of New England’s six states are expected, according to Joanna Kelley, deputy mayor of Portsmouth and owner of Cup of Joe Café & Bar. Kelley is also a co-founder of the festival.
The festival – a combination of food, music, dance, poetry and spoken word, vendors, and children’s entertainment and activities – will take place on the museum lawn on Sunday, August 18, from noon to 5 p.m.
The ongoing mission of New England BIPOC Fest is to support and promote businesses and nonprofit groups owned and operated by people of color, as well as organizations that center people of color and support underserved communities.
Kelley is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Strawbery Banke Museum.
“One of the things we’ve talked about a lot is making sure that we’re living up to our mission with the events we bring here, and this is our mission,” Kelley said of the New England BIPOC Fest’s move to Strawbery Banke.
The festival’s move to Strawbery Banke represents an intersection between the region’s Black and Indigenous peoples and the history of local European settlement, which took place on land once inhabited by the Abenaki people and other indigenous peoples.
Strawbery Banke was colonized in 1623, and the museum notes that the Abenaki people visited the coast seasonally for over 12,000 years to fish, hunt, and prepare food.
“We are very honored and excited to host this event. It is a natural extension of the museum’s work to tell more inclusive stories,” Veronica Lester, the museum’s marketing director, said Thursday.
The museum will have its own booth at the festival on Sunday, highlighting the presence of the Abenaki people and the Penhallow House on campus, where the black Cousins family lived from 1937 to 1943, according to museum archaeologist Alix Martin.
Geraldine Palmer, a child of the Cousins family, grew up in the house and has teamed up with Strawbery Banke to tell stories of her parents’ lives there. The museum carried out archaeological work in the house for three years.
“They were not alone,” Martin said of the Cousins family. “During the 1910s and 1930s, dozens of black families from various southern states moved to Portsmouth as part of the Great Migration. Most of them worked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, including (Geraldine’s) father, Kenneth.”
Strawbery Banke is currently restoring the house to its original appearance in the first half of the 20th century, reflecting the Cousins family’s experiences of de facto segregation in Portsmouth after leaving the South, where Jim Crow laws were in place.
“I turned to archaeology because I wanted to answer questions about how people lived. I realised early on that it would only be valuable if it was interesting to people today. There’s no point digging up historical rubbish if it doesn’t help tell a story or make history more tangible for people. The aim is to bring a new audience to Strawbery Banke and show how we interpret these stories. I can’t wait,” Martin said of the festival.
Entertainment and food program at New England BIPOC Fest 2024
The festival’s entertainment program includes former Portsmouth Poet Laureate Diannely Antigua, Unicorn Cove Hula Hui, Mariachi Estrellas de Boston, Parks Taekwondo School, West African dance and drumming, and music and dance from the Indonesia Cultural Center.
Indian, Mexican, Jamaican, Indonesian, Korean and Puerto Rican food vendors will be on hand, among others. All food vendors at the festival will receive a $500 food stipend for their participation.
In addition to Kalamata’s Kitchen, a mobile science, technology, engineering and math truck from the University of New Hampshire will also be on site for children.
All visitors to the New England BIPOC Fest will have access to the museum grounds on Sunday and vice versa, Kelley said.
“Sometimes we think of the museum as kind of a standstill in time, but in reality these houses have been continuously inhabited by different people over the centuries that they’ve been here,” Kelley said. “Right now we’re living through (what will be considered) history. So in 50 years we would look back and say, ‘Remember when they started holding the festival at the museum?'”
Festival officials expect 3,000 to 4,000 guests to attend the free festival on Sunday, an expected increase from last year’s roughly 2,000 attendees. The 2023 event featured 32 vendors from across New England.
The event is free and open to the public. A donation is suggested.
Information: newenglandbipocfest.com/
